News Item

The southern portion of the Machete Ridge rock formation and access trails are closed to all climbing and off-trail hiking.

Trash Problems At The Park

posted: February 05, 2015

As many of you are already aware, the trash problem has increased dramatically since the Park officially became a National Park. Visitor counts are way up and along with it seems to come the garbage.

As you can see from the correspondence below, FOP is trying to do what it can.

Climbers are generally already aware of the need to clean up after themselves, but there is more that we can all do.

Next time you go climbing you might:

Carry several, medium-sized garbage bags in your pack
Clip one outside your pack and fill it as you hike

Inform the Park of what you find and/or collect
It is best if you send an email on the day of your cleanup; this way there is a record of your work

Let FOP know what you did and we will post it in our ongoing effort to raise awareness and document efforts

We are talking about organizing some cleanups, but don't wait for us - you can organize your own cleanups.
A great way to do this is to get a group of people together for a climbing day, knock off a couple hours early and do cleanup on the way back to the cars.

Please feel free to contact FOP if you have other information or suggestions.

Here's a copy of the note Bruce sent to the park:

Clint and I were at the Pinnacles to rebolt the Hatchet yesterday(which, as it turns out has already been rebolted) and ran across all this trash in and around the climber's trail as it passes Ridge Rock. The final tally was:

43 glass bottles

46 aluminum cans

3 tin cans

13 plastic bottles

23 oyster shells(!)

See the attached photo.

Clearly, some group of people have been going up there and having some sort of party/ritual and just tossing their refuse in the bushes. As a bit of forensic intel, the date markings on some of the bottles was 7/2011. It would be nice to ban glass bottles on the Park's trails though maybe that would just mean more aluminum cans.